Half-Blood Blues by Edugyan Esi

Author:Edugyan, Esi [Edugyan, Esi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Serpent's Tail
Published: 2011-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

When we left Hagenbecks, it was like something gone out of the kid then, some kind of fury. He was just wearied. We ain’t drove back to Ernst’s estate at once. Kid directed me down toward the piers, and we pulled in slow, got out, walked to the far end to sit in the cool sunlight. Our legs dangled out over the black water. A swell of gulls rose over our heads, screaming. Air stank of the salt and the heavy docks across the way.

A big grey ship pushed slowly through the locks.

Hiero banged the dried mud from his shoes, stared out over the long shawl of water. ‘Hell. Hard to believe there be Algerians at the end of this water.’

I nodded, feeling depressed. ‘And Icelanders.’

He smiled. ‘Canadians?’

‘Indians.’

‘Some poor old jack in Baltimore lookin right back at us,’ said the kid, swinging his big feet.

I frowned. ‘I might even know him. Might be my Uncle Henry.’

‘America,’ said Hiero, and there was something in his voice.

‘You talk bout this sea and that sea,’ I said. ‘Atlantic. Pacific. But it all one water, ain’t it? Why divide it up?’

Hiero squinted up at the gulls. ‘You a real poet, Sid. A goddamn Herodotus.’

But my thoughts done already wander, to the day the kid first walked into our lives. How Paul brought him down to the Hound one night, the kid’s face half hidden by a old tramp’s cap slouched low over his eyes. I remember how I grinned at Chip, thinking he look like a damn child. No more than twelve years old. Hell, Paul couldn’t be serious. Was we really supposed to believe this Joe Diaper be a horn blower for real?

The kid come up, his jacket swaying every which way. He look awkward, all knees and elbows. He dressed like some tramp, huge khaki trousers held up with blue suspenders. Ratty houndstooth coat. And that dirty cap on his head, looking less like protection from the weather than something to hide under. Shade the world from his eyes when he ain’t feel like seeing it. He might’ve been any nasty little street brat to look at his clothes. What got you was how he moved in them. Didn’t strut exactly – he was too shy for that – but he moved with a rhythm got you thinking. Like he had a damn limp.

Paul kept going on bout what a dazzling genius he was, what a rare talent. A damn virtuoso. Me, I couldn’t stop looking at his skinny wrists.

But when he lifted his horn, we give him a respectful silence. His trumpet was a cheap-looking thing, dented, like a foil-wrapped chocolate been in a pocket too long. He put his rabbity fingers on the pistons, cocked his head, his left eye shutting to a squint. ‘Buttermouth Blues,’ Ernst called back to him.

The kid nodded. He begun to tease air through the brass. At first we all just stood there with our axes at the ready, staring at him. Nothing happened. I glanced at Chip, shook my head.

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